One of my New Year’s resolutions was to stop posting comments to Australian politician Craig Kelly’s Facebook page. He’s a climate change denier and posts a lot of very selective stuff on climate, coal, socialism, crime, etc and his followers get sucked right in. The other day, I tried to post the following in response to an article he posted by some Russian scientists who had written a paper, ‘Cosmic rays, solar activity, and changes in the earth’s climate’, trying to link cosmic rays and solar activity to global temperatures. By the time I finished writing it, there was a message to say I might not be authorised to post comments here and I noticed my other posts had gone. I guess he’s done me a favour. Here’s what I hadn’t intended to post …

“Cosmic ray fluxes have been monitored since about 1950 and no significant trend is apparent. Similarly, there have been no significant trends in solar activity since at least the 1970s (it has probably gone down a fraction) except of course the 11-12 year cycles.

The authors seem to be forecasting that cosmic ray fluxes will increase, leading to greater cloud formation which will mean cooler temperatures. Their work seems to use the same principle as that of Henrik Svensmark of Denmark who has been going on about the effect of cosmic rays on cloud formation and global temperatures for a couple of decades. He says cosmic rays have decreased over the last 100 years, leading to less cloud formation and therefore higher temperatures, rather than the higher levels of CO2 causing the higher temperatures. Many studies have been done to try and replicate his work but they find little or no correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover.

For his theory to be correct, there has to be a long term increase in the solar magnetic field. But this and other measures of solar activity haven’t increased. There is good satellite data back to the 1970s. When you look at the sun’s energy output as measured by watts per square metre, it has fluctuated between about 1366 and 1367 in short term cycles of about 11 years, and a slight decline if anything in the long term. It’s different if you’re looking at a scale of many thousands or millions of years.

Also, there needs to be a long term negative trend in cosmic ray flux and there isn’t; there’s no significant trend. Also, there needs to be a link between cosmic rays and cloud formation but various studies have found no significant link. And there also has to be a long term negative trend in low level cloud cover, and that hasn’t been the case either.

Good luck to the Russian scientists with their cooling forecast. They might need it.”

One of the things climate change or global warming deniers like to do is to use unadjusted temperature data to try and ‘prove’ that temperatures aren’t increasing and that the 1930s were just as warm as now. I posted the following to a Facebook page (Australian politician Craig Kelly’s) in response to a few denier comments about homogenised data just being part of the climate change ‘fraud’.

No use looking at raw data. It has to be adjusted or homogenised data. This is done by weather bureaus all around the world to take out non-climatic changes such as shifting weather stations and changing measuring methods. Three main things have to be adjusted for.

Over the decades, weather stations have typically moved from post offices in the centre of town, where it is warmer especially at night (urban heat island effect) to airports on the outskirts of town in green open fields where it’s cooler. This is why raw temperatures in the 1930s are often about as high as now (the move to airports was generally from about the 1940s onwards). This non-climatic change to temperatures has to be taken out to get a true picture of how temperatures have changed.

It can go the other way too; for example, town-based weather stations that haven’t moved might now be surrounded by more concrete and steel than decades past.

Also, temperature measuring methods have changed and this can have an effect. In the 19th century, instruments were typically attached to walls of buildings and protected from the sun by metal screens but this had the effect of pushing up temperatures. Instruments were then put in gardens away from buildings but infrared radiation from the ground could push up temps on calm sunny days. High-tech automatic weather stations that counter these sort of problems are now common.

Once all the adjustments are made, we can get a far more accurate picture of how temperatures have actually changed rather than changes influenced by the shifting of weather stations or different measuring methods.

I’ve been posting comments to Australian politician Craig Kelly’s Facebook page. Kelly and his followers are climate change deniers, so there’s a lot of misinformation, selective information and non-information there. I posted the following after Kelly put up a graph showing the number of deaths from natural disasters in Australia from 1900 to 2010 normalised for population growth only (although he didn’t say it was only normalised for population growth and nothing else such as huge changes in building quality, early warning systems, emergency services, etc). The graph shows a declining number of deaths. To Kelly, this is proof that fossil fuels have done a great job in providing heating, cooling, etc in homes and elsewhere and therefore the number of deaths from natural disasters has fallen. His followers agreed, without of course checking the rest of the report the graph came from. I made an edit to my post on two occasions and on the second one, Facebook wouldn’t post it; it disappeared. I think they’ve got some algorithm in there to try and prevent spam or something, like I’d posted it three times. Anyway, I thought I’d post it here. The study and report, linked to below, is by the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science …

It looks firstly at annual weather related insurance losses from 1966 to 2013. In nominal dollar terms, the losses go up a lot, which you would expect. These dollar figures are then normalised for such things as increases in the number of houses and their value, building code changes and better construction (which is a broadly similar process that temperature data goes under to get it from raw to adjusted, for factors such as weather stations moving, more concrete and steel around existing stations, and different temperature measuring instruments, although climate deniers prefer raw data as it shows much less of an increase in temperatures over time). The report says there is ‘no statistically significant upward trend’, which is broadly true over the whole period. The correlation coefficient (which can be between -1 and +1), r, for the years 1966 to 2013 is 0.09, or a possible slight increase in normalised losses. Leaving off 2013 (which was a year of many natural disasters and for which claims don’t appear to have been complete at the time of the study), r = 0.12. If we start at 1980, the time when temperatures started to increase rapidly, r = 0.23, and leaving off 2013, r = 0.29. The p-value for this last one is 0.053, so it’s just over the threshold (0.05 or 1 chance in 20 of no actual increase) between ‘reject’ and ‘not reject’; so we can reject, and only just reject, the hypothesis that there is a statistically significant upward trend in insurance losses. However, the graph (figure 1) doesn’t seem to include the 2011 Qld floods of $2.5b normalised (table 1). Adding this in, r = 0.366 for 1980 to 2012, giving a p-value of 0.018 or about a 1 in 55 chance of there being no actual increase in normalised losses over the period 1980 to 2012.

The study then looks at fatalities. The raw data for annual fatalities from 1900 to 2010 is shown in figure 2 and there looks to be no long term increase or decrease. This is then normalised in figure 3 for population growth and now shows a significant decrease in fatalities. But it doesn’t take into account the huge leaps in early warning systems, the vastly larger and better emergency and rescue services, much better knowledge, and all the community safety campaigns, all of which were virtually non-existent in 1900 (some dot points near the bottom of the page suggest that further studies might include some of this). We of course have better buildings, and they do have better heating and cooling from electricity which so far has mainly come from fossil fuels. We probably also spend more time indoors both at work and when not at work these days, therefore staying out of the heat more. I would also question the raw numbers in figure 2. Table 2 has 8256 deaths from natural disasters from 1900 to 2011. This is an average of 74 deaths per year. Yet figure 2 shows an average of perhaps around 25, with only six years where the number exceeds 74, and in four of those years it’s not much above 74. Further, a list of disasters at Wikipedia shows that fatalities from Australia’s worst disasters far exceed what is shown in figure 2, e.g. a heatwave in Victoria claimed 438 lives in 1938-39, one in SE Australia 374 lives in 2009, a heatwave in the southern states 246 lives in 1907-08, bushfires in Victoria 173 in 2009, and many more.

Thus there seems to be an increase in normalised losses, certainly since 1980. But we really can’t make much out of the normalised fatalities numbers as they only take into account population increase.

The increase in wild weather worldwide due to climate change between 1980 and 2014 is shown quite vividly in a National Geographic article: ‘Wild weather’, which starts off: ‘Torrential hurricanes, devastating droughts, crippling ice storms, and raging heat waves—all are extreme weather phenomena that can claim lives and cause untold damage. Climate change influences severe weather by causing longer droughts and higher temperatures in some regions and more intense deluges in others, say climate experts.’ The number of extreme events increased steadily from 291 in 1980 to 904 in 2014, nearly all of them weather related. See https://www.nationalgeographic.com/climate-change/how-to-live-with-it/weather.html.

In Australia, new senator and climate denier Malcolm Roberts appeared on television on the ABC’s Q&A program last Monday, 15 August 2016. I posted the following comment on his Facebook page but it got deleted and I got tossed off (haha). I guess the truth sometimes hurts …

After watching Q&A, I think I’m figuring out why Malcolm Roberts keeps saying there is no empirical evidence for warming or AGW [anthropogenic global warming] despite abundant evidence. He just doesn’t believe in any of the data that shows warming. Brian Cox [physicist and television presenter] showed a graph of NASA data that clearly shows significant warming since the 19th century. Roberts said not true as the data is corrupted and manipulated, by NASA. His reason for this: a well known denier, Steve Goddard showed that the 1930s were allegedly warmer than the current decade and that 1930s recordings were reduced and latest decade inflated, and that BOM [Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology] did the same.

Seems that much or most of the problem was Goddard’s failure to understand that raw data is adjusted to give a truer picture, including estimates of missing data. Statistics of all sorts are adjusted for seasonal and other impacts. It means the data gives a more accurate representation of what is actually happening. All official statistical agencies around the world do it for all sorts of collections. Temperature data are also adjusted. Weather recording stations move and this can have a big effect on temperature; moves from a post office to an airfield have been common. Adjustments are also made due to changes in measuring instruments and their accuracy over the years. Another reason is that a weather station may become more closed in, such as by additional nearby buildings, which can affect temperatures. These things are taken into account by all weather bureaus around the world.

Hunt [Greg Hunt, ex-environment minister, now industry minister] wasn’t buying Roberts’ argument for no warming either. He pointed out that weather bureaus, scientific organisations and leading universities all come to the same conclusion: global warming is real. Serna [Lily Serna, mathematician and television presenter] couldn’t believe we were still having this conversation, that there was overwhelming consensus from scientists who are the experts in their field, and that we should be getting on with mitigation and adaptation. Roberts said consensus isn’t science and that he still needs empirical evidence. Cox tried to explain the scientific process to him, including measuring temperature and CO2 and making predictions. Roberts said the numbers have been hopelessly wrong.

My conclusion was that Roberts doesn’t understand scientific or statistical processes and just looks for any odd bit of data that supports his case for no warming and especially no AGW. I’ve looked at statistical adjustment above. On models, we can get an idea of what might happen, but it’s impossible to know exactly how hot it will be or how far sea levels will rise in however many years’ time, just as it is impossible to know what the economic growth rate will be: there are just so many variables. On consensus, the following is probably the best empirical evidence there is for warming and AGW, i.e. looking at the metadata:

– In 2013, John Cook et al looked at about 12,000 academic papers on climate change / global warming, covering all sorts of issues. They found that 66.4% of abstracts had no position on AGW, 32.6% supported it, 0.7% didn’t and 0.3% were uncertain. Thus about 97% of papers with a view on AGW supported it. According to Roberts on Q&A, the figure for support was 0.3%, which is strange given that most scientific organisations have a statement supporting AGW [and most governments accept it too].

– In 2004, Naomi Oreskes analysed 928 papers published between 1993 and 2003. About 75% went with the consensus view of AGW, 25% were about methodology and paleoclimatology, and 0% opposed the consensus view.

– In 2007, Harris Interactive took a random sample of 489 members of the AMS and two other relevant bodies and found that 97% agreed with global warming, with 84% saying it was AGW and 5% said there wasn’t AGW.

– Bray and von Storch found that 40% of climate scientists agreed with AGW in 1996, 53% in 2003 and 84% in 2008.

– Doran and Zimmerman in 2008 found 97% agreed with AGW.

– A National Academy of Sciences study in 2010 put it at 97-98%.

– James Powell in 2013 found 24 of 13,950 articles disagreeing with AGW. In 2014, Powell found 1 author out of 9136 rejecting AGW.

And of course all national and international scientific organisations believe there is warming and most of it is due to our activities except a handful of geology groups that are still sitting on the fence.

Some conspiracy, like thousands of scientists around the world study in areas relevant to climate science and undertake careers in science to be involved in a scam; ditto all scientific organisations; and governments of all major countries. Yeah, and the world is flat too.

I posted this to Bubblews writing site, now gone, a couple of years ago. Since then, 2014 was a record warm year and then 2015 was another record. And February 2016 was the record hottest month …

There is virtually universal acceptance of global warming among scientists and scientific organisations and that man is almost certainly the cause of much or most of it. The deniers are likely to be concerned about business costs or perhaps have religious convictions. They also like to single out individual studies they think use less than robust methods, but it doesn’t change the overall situation.

NASA data shows that 2005 was a global temperature record and 2010 was another record. The years 2011 and 2012 were considerably higher than anything before 1998. In fact, global temperatures each year since 1995 have been higher than anything we saw before 1995 (and going back several thousand years at least). Short term levelling off occurs, e.g. first half of the 1980s, first half of the 1990s, and arguably in some recent years, but the overall trend is upwards.

Annual levels of carbon emissions continue to increase each year. Temperatures are up. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe. Deforestation continues. Glacier thickness is diminishing at a greater rate each year. The oceans are rising and their temperatures are increasing faster than the atmosphere.

NASA states: “Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.” http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus

This is followed by statements by a number of leading scientific bodies saying that climate is changing and it’s largely due to human activity. Further down the page is a link to 200 scientific organisations around the world who have concluded that “climate change has been caused by human action”. The CSIRO is included. Here’s the link: http://opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php

Does anyone know of any national or international scientific body that rejects man-made global warming? I think the last one was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which moved from rejection to non-committal in 2007. There are still a handful of others who are non-committal, solely geology groups, I believe, although I think most geology groups now concur with man-made global warming.

There are of course some individual scientists who don’t concur with man-made global warming. Most or all seem to cop a fair bit of flak from colleagues.

It’s interesting that some of the deniers link temperature change to solar activity, but if anything, solar activity has fallen slightly since about 1980.

A Morgan poll in July had Turnbull as preferred Liberal Party leader by 44% of people (up 6% from April). Bishop had 15% of the vote (down 12%). Abbott was on just 13% (up 1%). Coalition voters had Turnbull at 32% (up 2%), Abbott 26% (up 1%), Bishop 16% (down 9%), Morrison 13% (up 5%), Hockey 4% (unchanged). Turnbull would perhaps be the Coalition’s only chance of a second term, given it would need to convince a lot of swinging voters to change their minds.

Labor would obviously prefer Abbott to remain and it seems there’s a good chance the Coalition might be silly enough to oblige. They’ve painted themselves into a corner on this after endlessly criticising Labor’s leadership changes, although the Coalition had four leaders in two years: Howard, Nelson, Turnbull, Abbott. But the Coalition paints itself into various corners criticising Labor and then does a worse job themselves. The budget is a good example. But they still carry on like vengeful schoolkids blaming everyone and everything for their problems but themselves.

You would think something has to give. The latest Morgan poll is at 57:43 in favour of Labor. The poll is much larger than the others and includes people who only use a mobile phone. It’s hard to see this improving with the Coalition’s efforts on marriage equality and climate change.

A number of polls have shown that support for marriage equality is 68-72%, yet the Coalition (read Abbott) has decided to draw the issue out for years, ensuring plenty of internal bickering, and then perhaps have a referendum at a cost of $150 million to find out something we already know: that support for marriage equality is high.

On climate change, they’ve gone with a weak emissions reduction target and prefer non-renewables.But the Climate of the Nation 2015 survey found that 84% of people had solar in their top three preferred energy sources, followed by wind with 69%, gas 21%, nuclear 13% and Abbott’s coal 13%. The same survey found that more than three-quarters of people felt the polluters should pay, not the taxpayers. But carbon pricing is gone and we now have the expensive, ineffective Direct Action policy where the taxpayer pays. The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated the cost to the budget of abolishing carbon pricing to be $18 billion over four years. Surveys have shown that people (and especially economists) prefer carbon pricing to Direct Action.

Then there’s the Dyson Heydon saga.

How many nails do you need in a coffin? It’s quite possible Abbott and the Coalition will think of some more.

Comment by Andrew: “good summary Chrispy”

Comment by Rich: “Thank you for the BEST REASONED, FACT-BASED ANALYSIS I’ve seen ANYWHERE about the current malaise in our Federal political situation!!”

Thanks guys. Yes, it really is a malaise that surely can’t continue medium or long term. Will be interesting to see what happens. Anyone’s guess really. Perhaps the only safe bet is that Tony Abbott won’t be there long term.